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An anonymous reader writes "Forbes.com went to MacWorld to ask Apple fans what bugs them about the computer and gadget maker. Turns out the lack of replaceable batteries, need to buy Vista separately, and most of all the stock price bugs people."

You might actually have a point there. By charging more and carrying on this whole cult of mac mentality, apple is duping people into thinking that they must be buying a superior product. The more Apple fans pay, the more aroused they get gazing at their sleek designer machines.

Not vista, but it would be helpful to buy a Mac pre-configured with bootcamp + Windows XP. I don't want it at home, but at work it would be quite nice. I could see small business customers loving it.My boss and I make jokes about Apple, Inc. vs. Apple Computer, Inc. Dropping computer in the name was not just to aid in the sale of phones. I think Apple has lost some focus on their computers. Leopard has not been as big as they had hoped. We're putting off the upgrade at work as long as possible. Leopar

Your anecdotes don't fit with my anecdotes... my Macbook Pro (2GB RAM) goes for weeks without a reboot... no problems. There are some 3rd party apps that give me issues... Firefox is even slower than on Tiger for instance... but overall I'm really liking Leopard.

I can't tell you anything about Leopard, but here's my record for uptime on my desktop running 10.4:

18:07 up 112 days, 8:57, 5 users, load averages: 0.93 0.24 0.08

As I'm typing this, my desktop has been up 42 days. So, might I humbly suggest that it is not the OS that's your problem, could it be an application? (And yes, I also use my desktop as a file server/terminal for my cluster, that's why it stays up so much.)

Agreed fully. Leopard, while not as big a disaster as Vista, was not a solid release - not in the same way that Tiger was largely problem-free. I'm still getting MANY network driver problems (refusing to talk to my router's DNS, but only when looking up CERTAIN entries), some BSODs were eliminated with 10.5.1, but IMHO some of them were so serious and easily encountered that it should never have been in any shipping version.

Feature-wise I'm liking Leopard, the unification of the UI is definitely a step fo

Not vista, but it would be helpful to buy a Mac pre-configured with bootcamp + Windows XP. I don't want it at home, but at work it would be quite nice. I could see small business customers loving it.

Sure, but why should that be Apple's responsibility? Apple is there to advertise and sell MacOS X. People buying Macs are for the moost part buying it for MacOS X. If some people want Windows presinstalled on the system, then they could always pay extra and have a shop do the work for them. Apple offering Windows as a 'Build To Order' option would likely cause confusion about their confidence in their own OS.

Apple shouldn't make it any more easier to use the competing OS than they already have. They aren't a generic computer seller and the more the can convince you to drink the cool-aid the better for them. Anyone who believes in their OS, whether it be Linux, Windows, BSD or Amiga, amongst others, are going to have the same attitude.

As to your gripes about Leopard, I am not sure how you are getting such a bad experience. I haven't rebooted for over a month and I use it daily, putting the system to sleep at night. The usual causes for exessive memory usage, on my computer, have been leaks in Firefox and when that happens I kill Firefox and relaunch it. Admitly one computer has gone done once in a while, and the kernel panic clearly points to an ATI driver issue.

Apple today announced that it sold (or delivered in the case of maintenance agreements) over two million copies of Mac OS X Leopard since its release on Friday, far outpacing the first-weekend sales of Mac OS X Tiger, which was previously the most successful OS release in Apple's history.

On June 6, 2005, Apple announced that they expected to deliver over two million copies of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger by the end of that week (June 11, 2005). Mac OS X Tiger was released at 6pm on Friday, April 29, 2005. Therefore, it took 43 days to sell two million copies of Mac OS X Tiger vs. approximately 3 days for Leopard.

Additionally, Jobs revealed in his keynote that in 90 days, Apple had shipped 5 million copies of Leopard (which of course, means retail boxes plus new machines, but Leopard undoubtedly helped sell those machines). This resulted in 20% of the installed base running the new OS in 90 days.

Who the hell bothers with Bootcamp? As a corporate Mac OSX user with a standard corporate XP image I have to say that its miles better to run a VM on Mac OSX with Parallels rather than Bootcamp... that way when the security patch causes the XP machine to freeze I can still work on the Mac.

What about the other things? Replaceable batteries? The batteries on my MacBook Pro and PowerBook are easily replaceable. Those on the iPod aren't, but I would much rather have a small device than a bigger one with a removable battery. Vista? I switched to Mac to get away from Windows, and all of the other operating systems I use are free (and Free). The stock price? Totally bugs me. Every time I use my Mac, I think 'this would be so much more useful to me if only Apple's stock price were different.' No, wait, I don't.

The thing that really bug me about Apple now is that they seem to have completely forgotten how QA is supposed to work. I have filed more bug reports for Leopard since its release than for any other OS (including on that is reproduceable and causes the user's home directory to be rendered inaccessible by any Leopard machine). I have raised my standards a lot for what kind of bug I should file with Leopard. With Jagwyre and Tiger I filed bugs that were UI regressions or caused irritation. With Leopard I'm only filing ones that are major UI regressions or cause serious data loss and I'm still filing a lot more than I was.

Batteries, yes. Vista, WTF?? Stock price, split already! Add to that, downgrades in Leopard, like the loss of airtunes in frontrow, the loss of file system menus in the dock, and how they borked previews in finder column views to force quicklook on you. Also, the inability to sync iTunes libraries on multiple macs is extremely annoying. If you can sync with AppleTV, why can't you sync with a Mini? Does RIAA cock taste that good Apple? Oh, and WTF is up with no airtunes audio jack on the new time capsule? Who missed that one? Other gripes, still no iPhone SDK, glass iPhone that's *going* to break, and phone software that's three years behind the rest of the industry with regards to MMS, camera, java, flash, etc and so forth...

And leave it to Forbes to get all that and to miss THE ONE MOUSE BUTTON - seriously. The DESKTOPS now have plenty of buttons, but the laptops still only, really have one.

I'm going to assume you're just supremely ignorant instead of a troll and explain (I'll type slowly for you) that all the laptops "right-click" by simply placing 2 fingers on the trackpad and clicking *anywhere* on the button. I addition, you can configure the trackpad to treat a tap on the pad itself with 2 fingers to indicate a right-click. With these methods you can "right-click" with your hand in any position on the trackpad instead of having to cock it to find the "right-click-button".

I love Apple stuff. I love OS X and it has in the last few months been what Linux (after almost 10 years of trying) never could be for me: a complete and total replacement for Windows.

With that said, I don't like Apple's computer lineup. We have a good selection on notebooks now: cheap, ultra portable, and powerful.

Ok, now for desktop: cheap, all-in-one, and powerhouse workstation. Problem is: where is the regular computer? For anybody who wants a reasonably specced system (better than Mini, not as tricked out as the Pro) with no monitor added, there's just no good choice. I already have a monitor. Not only do I not want another, but I can't use it: I share my monitor between multiple systems and you can't do that with an iMac. iMac also has no upgrade slots for new video cards etc.

I have an old G4 that does well. I have a hacked x86 "Mac" box that fits my computing needs. I have an Apple TV, and I have an iPod. I love Apple's stuff. I just wish that they'd make a "real" Mac that fit my needs so I wouldn't have to resort to building one.

Agreed. In my case, I build web sites, so having two monitors is critical, something that the iMac and Mini won't support. However, I don't need a particularly powerful box to do the coding and some light graphics work. Because I want two monitors, I'm faced with the choice between a $600 Windows box or a $2500 Mac Pro. While I would gladly shell out extra money to have a Mac desktop--I'd pay $1000 or even $1500 for one, probably--I just cannot justify paying four times the price for the Pro.
Unfortunately for Apple, this situation is pushing me towards Windows in general. I've got an old iBook for travel, but there's something to be said for consistency, and when the iBook goes out I'm not sure if I'll go Mac or Windows with the next laptop.

Using the video output, your desktop was mirrored and did not span the two screens. (I don't know if the newest models still do this.) There were firmware hacks to get around this completely artificial restriction, which Apple put into place to differentiate their consumer line machines from their professional line. That's a thing about Apple that bugs me, now that you mention it.

The powerpc ibooks (and afaik imacs, never had a powerpc one) did have that artificial restriction. One bit changed in the boot loader prompt was sufficient to remove the restriction (the "firmware hack"), and it was so common that in practice it didn't even affect warranty (yes, I tested this). The intel macbooks and imacs do not have the mirror-only restriction.

And I completely agree, the artificial restriction was annoying. I suspect that consumer feedback to that effect (mine included) affected the de

Apple tends to back away when it gets demonstrated to them that such restrictions don't work. The dual-monitor hack detailed above; They used to artificially restrict you to Apple-branded wifi cards in OS X even when other cards of the same chipset would have worked--they backed down when people kept hacking the OS to use whatever brand Wifi card they wanted; People kept jailbreaking the iPhone, so soon we're going to get an official dev kit.

Apple tends to back away when it gets demonstrated to them that such restrictions don't work. The dual-monitor hack detailed above; They used to artificially restrict you to Apple-branded wifi cards in OS X even when other cards of the same chipset would have worked--they backed down when people kept hacking the OS to use whatever brand Wifi card they wanted; People kept jailbreaking the iPhone, so soon we're going to get an official dev kit.

They may back away when the restrictions don't work, but it doesn't seem to encourage them to stop implementing them in the first place. The company is no longer in the situation where they need to pull this sort of stunt and yet they continue to do so. That's something that annoys me about Apple.

Using the video output, your desktop was mirrored and did not span the two screens. (I don't know if the newest models still do this.) There were firmware hacks to get around this completely artificial restriction, which Apple put into place to differentiate their consumer line machines from their professional line.

I haven't tried it a newer iMac, but a quick check on their specs page [apple.com] seems to indicate that they've lifted this restriction. From the "Graphics and video" section:

Buy used.My iBook 600 lasted me 5 years, including all thru college, so when I had the means, I bought a Mac Pro with a 24" Dell. I love it. But you're absolutely right, the power is way more than most of us need. I justified it because I know if I could last 5 years on a non-upgradeable system, it will be no problem to go that long on this one.

I really don't understand Apple's justification for not selling a computer for the rest of us.

I agree. I'm not much of a serious gamer, but I would love to have a computer with a good GPU, a decent CPU and lots of storage to tinker around with. I would Tri-boot and use OS X for normal web browsing, WoW, and making simple movies (like this one i made [youtube.com]) in OS X, playing custom songs in GH3 in XP, and for experimenting with various FOSS OS's, as essentially the only experience I have is with Ubuntu. Part of that tinkering includes me wanting to make it myself, but that is not a neccesity. So essentially

Yup. I'm holding on to my G5 tower for now until Apple either ships a reasonable desktop computer (ie. one with a slotted video card and a good mainstream processor) or a laptop with a docking station that will let me have 2 monitors but still snap it out and go.

I've been waiting almost 5 years so far. I'm hoping they do this before I'm forced to go to the dark side.

Dang, sometimes I wish someone other than Apple made "normal" computers that ran MacOS X.

Ok, now for desktop: cheap, all-in-one, and powerhouse workstation. Problem is: where is the regular computer? For anybody who wants a reasonably specced system (better than Mini, not as tricked out as the Pro) with no monitor added, there's just no good choice.

I think the problem here is, the typical user would consider the mini a "reasonably specced system". The mini is a "regular computer". To accommodate the people who want something in between the mini and the Pro, well, they're all going to want sli

So what features, other than an expansion slot does a "standard" PC have that an iMac or Mac mini doesn't?An ordinary PC desktop:Either supports two monitors of my choice out of the box or can be fitted with a cheap and easy to fit card that allows it to do so.Monitors are usually a seperate item that can be bought from a different supplier to the PC if desired and saved from one PC to the next.Either has graphics suitable for moderate 3D gaming out of the box or can be fitted with a cheap and easy to fit c

Ok, now for desktop: cheap, all-in-one, and powerhouse workstation. Problem is: where is the regular computer?

I share your frustration, but I think Apple's business plan depends on selling sexy. "designer" laptop and small form-factor systems that offer a high profit margin and long "product lifetimes" without being uncompetetive. Since the Intel switch, Apple prices (esp. at the start of a product cycle) have compared well with equivalent "premium" PCs.

Is that generally a good monitor will outlast a computer. At work some time ago we got budget to upgrade one of our instructional labs. It badly needed it, the engineering software we run in it (particularly HFSS) was just way too much for the old machines. Well we were given $50,000 for 50 machines. We could spend that however we wanted, but basically it means $1000 to distribute to a computer. However, while the machines needed replacing, the monitors didn't. They are nice LCDs, and are all still working

I find that very interesting. For me, the two-finger scroll and two-finger alt click have been godsends. Now I can left click, right click, and scroll without changing my finger position on the trackpad whatsoever. I can't stand using the separate right click on my IBM linux laptop now.

Dude, I used to be the same way.But, then, I went fiddling around with it, and for starters, if you enable the options:

tap two fingers on the touchpad = right clickput two fingers on the touchpad and move them = scroll

And I have to agree with an above poster, now that I've had these features (fleetingly, damnit, i hated giving the macbook pro back when i quit my last job), I can't stand to use touchpads without them. Once I had this stuff enabled, and knew how to use it, I couldn't have cared if the damn t

I need to grow up? It seems the rest of us were having a mature discussion until you came along...

But in answer to your post, we are talking about trackpads here, rather than external mice. Of course a two-button mouse is preferable to a one-button mouse. Of course, the external mouse Apple ships is a two-button mouse. I don't prefer it myself, but it does have two buttons.

Few who have taken the time to learn the Apple trackpad would consider going to back to a less-capable style, unless they have a

That's interesting. I prefer my mice to have two buttons, but when it cums to trackpads I greatly prefer the "two-finger technique(TM)" for the right-clicking. I wonder what preference / difference in use causes this...

With the multitouch functionality in the new MacBook Air probably coming to the next iteration of Apple laptops, I think that the second button issue will become an anachronism. People will get used to the trackpad finger dance, and buttons will start to seem pointless.I already want to kill whenever I can't two finger scroll on other brands of laptop. The forward/back functionality and pinch on the new Apple machines looks like it will be a keeper as well. I honestly think than in a year or so, there will

We Apple fans like to see Apple do well, but probably more in terms of selling more products (higher marketshare, becoming more popular in society, etc.) than just higher profits (most of us aren't in it for the money, after all). So for me, one annoying thing Apple does is charge for products or services that could/should be free.

For example, the new software for the iPod touch is a $20 download. This is the same software that's a free update for the iPhone. Even the new software for the Apple TV is a free upgrade. If I were an iPod touch owner, I'd be pretty offended that I have to pay $20 (well, disregarding free jailbreaking options and whatnot) for an update that iPhone users get for free.

Remember iTools? The free service that gave you mail, web storage, etc. if you were a Mac user? In July 2002 it was rebranded as.Mac and Apple began charging $100/year for it. I realize that this increases profits (at least short-term), but I often find myself wishing that companies would accept short-term losses if it would mean an overall increase in marketshare and customer satisfaction. If.Mac were free, it could be marketed as yet another advantage of the Mac (in addition to iLife, etc.). Instead, it's an expensive subscription service that many people know nothing about, nor have they any reason to.

For example, the new software for the iPod touch is a $20 download. This is the same software that's a free update for the iPhone.

IANAL, but someone explained to me that, unlike with the iPhone, Apple doesn't account for the iPod Touch on a subscription basis, so they're required to charge something for upgrades in order to comply with the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, otherwise known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (Thank you so much Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, et al). Appare

I have no idea the truth of your claims, but I've seen them bandied about Slashdot quite a bit. I am highly skeptical of whether they could possibly be true though.Why is it that Apple seems to be the only company affected by this issue? Why is it that the Microsoft Zunes, albeit pieces of trash, were able to get free upgrades to generation 2 software granting them new features like wireless sync? Why is it that every piece of hardware I can think of that comes with firmware updates seems to be able to g

For example, the new software for the iPod touch is a $20 download. This is the same software that's a free update for the iPhone.

No it isn't. The new iPhone software adds a few new features to existing applications. The new iPod touch software adds completely new applications that had not previously been available at all. iPhone users get the location-aware update to Maps for free, but iPod touch users didn't have Maps at all.

There are accounting reasons that Apple has to charge for the iPod Touch updates to be in compliance with stuff like Sarbanes Oxley (sp?). Now, it should have been a $5 pack like the Wi-Fi update. People would have still complained, but bought it and moved on. At $20, you just feel gouged. Plus, who's going to want to buy an iPod Touch when this could just happen again in 6 months?Yeah, the real answer is that Apple will have released a newer iPod touch, and you'll get left behind anyways. That's the one th

We Apple fans like to see Apple do well, but probably more in terms of selling more products (higher marketshare, becoming more popular in society, etc.) than just higher profits (most of us aren't in it for the money, after all).

As an investor if I held Apple shares I'd want Apple to have a bigger market share but more importantly sell more. As a user I also want Apple to have a bigger share, as well as BSD, Linux, and Solaris. The more diverse the OS market the better.

As far as I can tell, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Apple charging for software upgrades don't have anything to do with each other. Which makes sense, as it seems plenty of other companies seem to be able to distribute software upgrades for free. So unless you can point out exactly why Apple must charge $20 for this upgrade, I'm going to have to call BS.

But nothing but the battery really bugs me.I would like to see Apple come out with a lower cost notebook.I would like to see Apple come out with a desktop that doesn't cost a fortune and lets you upgrade the graphics card.

I use macs at home and at work, and they are great machines....most of the time. Maybe I'm a perfectionist, maybe I'm just expecting too much, but so many of Apple's tools are great most of the time. However they have flaws that make them annoying to unusable in certain situations, and at least the Apple of late seems unwilling to fix them.
Example: Airport extreme with airdisk. When the thing is working it is perfect, however, in my experience the disconnects are really annoying, and it disconnects much more than my airport express ever did. Also, when, out of the box, I tried to bridge it with said express it went into infinite reboot mode till I did a factory reset. Again, in theory a great product but when I pay a premium for Apple products I expect it work right 99% of the time, not 90%.

Their server products are another great example of how Apple's products, on the surface anyway, are great, but in practice it tends to fall apart. We are rolling out an LDAP system and it has been nothing but problems. Apple has done a seemingly good job of making a really slick open directory server tool, but there are just too many bugs to make it worth while. A particularly nasty one, that has been reported to Apple but Apple refuses to fix, is that for some international users certain actions will change the time zone to Cupertino, which can wreak havoc with systems. Come on Apple, we paid a lot of money for this system, the least you can do is get the time zones correct. The server also has almost no meaningful error messages(took me forever to figure out the effects I was observing was related to the time zone bug, the Workgroup manager went on its happy way, authenticated me, then didn't do anything afterwards, not a single error message). Similar problems with getting Remote Desktop to work with Directory authentication. All I get is a "Authentication failed" message with no additional information either on the target machine or the server! Come on Apple, you went through a lot of effort to develop this system, but all that is wasted if you don't give me proper error messages!

Ditto with iPhone content management, the system works great 90% of the time, but the inability to give the user more flexibility with content management can lead to frustration and hacks that require playlists of playlists......

I don't know why Apple refuses to address these issues. None of them seem like they would be incredibly hard/expensive to fix, but Apple just seems to have the attitude that if it works in the general cases, there is no need to investigate the extremes and fix whatever problems may arise.

I don't know why Apple refuses to address these issues. None of them seem like they would be incredibly hard/expensive to fix, but Apple just seems to have the attitude that if it works in the general cases, there is no need to investigate the extremes and fix whatever problems may arise.

I think that for the most part... "You already paid for it, why should we do any more." Apple just doesn't fix shit unless they've got egg on their face. Pretty much security and catastrophic bugs. Everything else waits for the next version.

I don't like Vista (still run XP on most of my systems) but at least Microsoft documents their bugs and work arounds instead of pretending nothing is wrong.

On the other hand, Apple is cheap. A 130 dollar OS and 80 bucks for a suite of tools for total noob's isn't a bad

I know of several people who have decided against apple because they just didn't feel comfortable without accidental damage covered under warranty. It seems like apple could have something beyond applecare that could be purchased to cover this so those who don't want to pay extra don't have to.

The Mac Pro is less than 2 years old. The NVidia 8800 GT PC version works great in it under Windows, from what I've heard. Yet, Apple was either too lazy/incompetent or outright malicious to make the Mac version of that card compatible with older Mac Pros. I'm stuck with a choice between keeping my godawful NV 7300, or upgrading to a mid-range ATI cart, or an overpriced, extremely hardware-failure prone ATI X1900. "Weak" does not even begin to describe this situation.

I hated SWB/SBC (for many good reasons too lengthy for a comment box) and AT&T hasn't done anything to lessen that hatred over time. No matter how many features the iWhatever may have, even a footnote of involvement with AT&T is an instant buzz-kill. I really don't care what mitigating circumstances or defenses might be brought up here, AT&T is an instant "NO!" in my book.

Compared to that, my disgruntlement with their video hardware across the line is a minor thing. The exact nature of that disgruntlement depends on the model in question. Suffice to say that apple has my heart in the portable sphere for offering well spec'd, decently priced, and well-integrated portable Unix with their powerbooks/mac pros but I really wish they had something in the mid-range desktop line that wasn't an iMac (the mini is a bit too constraining, already have a nice monitor rendering the imacs moot, and the pro is far too over-spec'd/expensive for my needs). I'm half-way considering building a hackintosh for my next desktop. (It's either that or ubuntu most likely. Vista is right out.)

Batteries? This is a huge complaint by a large portion of the user base. The problem is that you didn't have to go to Macworld Expo to find this out... cheezy reporting.

Windows Vista? Ummmm this is entirely misrepresented here. Yes, some people might be upset that they have to plunk down $200 for vista, but think about it. That's not a problem with apple and no one focuses that gripe at apple. That's all the fault of Windows being way too expensive. It's that or they start bundling windows and making the mac $200 more, which I don't want. Apple has lots of great programs that are comparable to most windows programs.

Stock price? Everyone's stock price is hurting right now! We are a month from a recession, the stock market is tanking, and a stock going down after an expo is not unusual, in fact it happens a lot. It's called profit taking. Investors ride the short term wave of hype, and when the hype is done, they get off the wave as fast as they can. After the expo there's no more momentum keeping the stock moving upward quickly.

Ask a real apple fan what cheeses him. Like for example that A2DP isn't supported on the iphone, or any iPod. That's my #1 beef right now right after the battery issue.

OEM versions of Windows are WAY WAY cheaper than $200, you know? (which is what Apple would be paying for the OS if it came pre-installed) - they could charge $50 extra and probably break even or even make a tenny-weeny profit. Even if they did that, they would probably still charge an extra $200 and laugh to the bank.

Windows Vista? Ummmm this is entirely misrepresented here. Yes, some people might be upset that they have to plunk down $200 for vista, but think about it. That's not a problem with apple and no one focuses that gripe at apple. That's all the fault of Windows being way too expensive. It's that or they start bundling windows and making the mac $200 more, which I don't want.

OEM versions of Windows are WAY WAY cheaper than $200, you know? (which is what Apple would be paying for the OS if it came pre-instal

So I purchased an I-tunes gift card for $20 the other day expecting that with that alone I could actually buy some stuff from I-Store. On the packaging for the card it states that you can not refund or return the card. Ok, well it shouldn't be a problem, why would I need to do that? so I go to the I-store to get some stuff and low and behold now It needs a credit card!Why the Frak would I have bought an Frickin I-card if I had a fricken credit card! nowhere on the card does it say this! In the I-help it say

Your rant is a bit hard to follow, but I assume what you're saying is that you need a credit card in order to setup an account on the iTunes music store, before you can redeem the gift card?Interesting. Makes sense, I guess -- I mean, I know this is how they make sure you're not buying tunes (even when paying for them) from an iTMS in a foreign country. I've had an Apple account for a long time, which I guess has a CC linked to it; as I've used it for maybe $30-$40 in purchases over the years. I guess th

What strange and pointless article. Macs have all sorts of well documented deficiencies in either hardware or design, and even the most loyal fanbois will usually acknowledge them.

I'll still argue that the biggest weaknesses with Macs is the "we have decided what you need, and that's exactly what you get" attitude. Regardless of how much one may love Apple design, it still remains that one size does not fit all, and a lot of Apple's decisions work against people who have every good reason to do things in another way.

To wit - my preference for a Delete key instead of dragging files to a trash icon is not a weakness on my part, it's a more than reasonable preference. Regardless of all the keyboard options and such, there are many times when I simply prefer to press Delete.

Of course Vista is no better, and wrestling it into submission can also be frustrating, but I have heard few Vista users trying to argue that its deficiencies are in fact strengths.

What strange and pointless article. Macs have all sorts of well documented deficiencies in either hardware or design, and even the most loyal fanbois will usually acknowledge them.

I am coming to believe that the rabid fanboi is a mythological figure. I have never once actually encountered such a person.

To wit - my preference for a Delete key instead of dragging files to a trash icon is not a weakness on my part, it's a more than reasonable preference. Regardless of all the keyboard options and such, there are many times when I simply prefer to press Delete.

In MacOS, there's no keyboard access to it...And don't even get me started on the lack of keyboard accelerators. It seems that Apple doesn't think many of its users prefer the keyboard (which might very well be the case)...

Command-period has been the "cancel" keyboard shortcut on Mac OS for over 20 years, I suspect it will work where you're talking about with the progress bar.

And check out "full keyboard access" stuff in the system preferences, you'll find that not only can you use the keyboard for menu activation and such, you can also create your own custom shortcuts for almost any operation in any application you like. The keyboarding capabilities of the Mac OS are superior, overall, to pretty much any other system I can think of. Add on Quicksilver or something similar and it can get downright crazy how much you can accomplish in arbitrary applications without touching a mouse.

If you're somewhat new to the Mac, I recommend picking up one of David Pogue's books, he provides a great mixture of theory and practical information about how things are designed to work.

it annoys me that the vast majority of "problems" people have with Macs are in fact non-existent. they are just too ignorant.

which is fair enough if they've only had Windows experience so far. but so many seem in such a hurry to scream and rant. if they just took the time to learn the "Mac" way of doing things or asked questions rather than bitching it would be better.

when I got my first Mac I loved learning all the new things. I'd think "it would be great if I could do..." then spent some time searching. more often than not it was there. maybe not "obvious", but powerful nonetheless if you put a little effort in, e.g. there's no reason why Apple-Shift-4 should save a copy of a selected screen area as a file on the Desktop, but it does, and it rules.

I love the presentation and attention to detail in their products - software and hardware. I hate how that if it doesn't do what Apple thinks it should be doing, it's a bitch to modify it, and it'll probably self-destruct with the next update.

I've been at Macs a long, long time. Started with the Mac 512k, two external 400k floppies.A few things have really irked me lately that were not true in the past.- OS upgrade pricing. There is none, just buy it new. Used to be the system software was distributed free.- Leopard "improvements". This has been hashed out elsewhere, but reduced functionality in the dock and non-movable sections in the finder sidebar are irksome, regardless of purported internal improvements.- Many more app crashes. In APPLE products.- Inconsistent user design, focus on chrome and glitz rather than usability.- Ongoing arrogance and hubris, as witnessed in the $20 iPod Touch software upgrade. Again, quite the kick-in-the-nuts for early adopters.

Lots of things are right with Apple, but I am not that happy with the trend that I am afraid I am seeing.

That OS X box is only licensed for use on Apple hardware - all Apple hardware came with Mac OS - ergo, its an upgrade. Compare the OS X prices with Windows upgrades and "full retail" - I make it (UK prices) £85 for Leopard vs. £100 for the Vista Home Premium upgrade

- Leopard "improvements"

One of the double-edged swords with Apple is that things get designed by designers with strong opinions. Some designer

I've been a Mac faithful for about 15 years. I have owned every high-end apple laptop since the G3 Wall Street. The reason I have owned every high end laptop is that one of them always seems to have a major problem a year into using it. It could be a bad hard drive, motherboard, screen problems, or an OS upgrade that doesn't upgrade well and kills my system so many times, that I say f'it and get a new machine.

If it's not a machine going down, it's the lovely hanging mac. Some app has a problem, and you g

I've been a Mac faithful for about 15 years. I have owned every high-end apple laptop since the G3 Wall Street. The reason I have owned every high end laptop is that one of them always seems to have a major problem a year into using it. It could be a bad hard drive, motherboard, screen problems, or an OS upgrade that doesn't upgrade well and kills my system so many times, that I say f'it and get a new machine.

I definitely recommend the AppleCare extended warranty. Yes, if it breaks, it's a pain to be without your computer for awhile while it's being fixed, but my experience with Apple's service has been excellent. All computers have a chance of something breaking; Apple computers are only slightly more likely to break than others.

If it's not a machine going down, it's the lovely hanging mac. Some app has a problem, and you get the endless rainbow of death, or better yet, a frozen screen. Now all OS' have issues, and I have always loved my Mac(s), but the time has come for me to part ways with Apple (well, except for my iPhone).

That's very peculiar. Of course a crashed app can give you the spinning rainbow, but that happens to me on Vista all the time too (minus the spinning rainbow). A frozen screen sho

I'm not a Mac fanboy, hell I don't even own a Mac, but the biggest annoyance for me is Apple's gap in their product portfolio.

Take the laptops. The cheapest is £699. A similarly specified Dell would be about the same (or more) but for a lot of people they simply don't need everything that the MacBook offers. So if you want a laptop for email, the web and a little bit of word processing then you have a choice between a £699 MacBook or a £299 Dell. Yes the former has a bit more polish, but is it really worth the extra £400? Not for the casual/basic user.

Take Mac Mini's. There is nothing headless that sits between the most expensive Mac Mini (£499) and the cheapest Mac Pro (£1,429). I have a perfectly good monitor and I don't want to have to be forced to buy a new one every time I upgrade my PC - so I'd like to avoid the iMac.

I'm not a Mac fanboy, hell I don't even own a Mac, but the biggest annoyance for me is Apple's gap in their product portfolio.

Take the laptops. So if you want a laptop for email, the web and a little bit of word processing then you have a choice between a £699 MacBook or a £299 Dell. Yes the former has a bit more polish, but is it really worth the extra £400? Not for the casual/basic user.

Careful there.;) With OSX a casual/basic user -can- do video chat, burn their own movies, use a bluet

What bothers me is the fact that Forbes can't write a positive article about Apple. They always have to be the spoiler, trying to find the pit instead of the tasty cherry. It's the same thing that bothers me about open source in general.

Okay, that actually is what bothers me about Forbes. You'd think after looking like complete and utter fools for letting Dan Lyons keep writing false, misleading, or just stupid articles about Linux with respect to the SCO farce, they would rein him in a bit. Instead, he starts acting like a complete ass yet again with the fake Steve Jobs thing. The negativity that they have toward any non-Microsoft (and non-SCO, as it were) software is bizarre.

Forbes should be a credible source of news, but given their level of maturity in reporting in areas for which I have a high degree of knowledge, I wouldn't trust them in any other category. Ever.

BY FAR, it's the fact that I can't use a normal PC video card. Why is that? It's just silly. If I could do that, then I'd really have no need for a PC. Mac video cards lag behind too much and cost WAY too much.

Macs have used regular video cards since LONG before the Intel shift. I have a Voodoo I card that I flashed the rom for to let it work in my Mac from my PC. I don't remember the year, but that was probably 1996? I can't say for sure, but I think the first PPC motherboards (depending on the model) also used standard PCI slots (not the all-in-one Performas, but the desktop and tower models). My 1999 G4 tower has an AGP slot, just as was standard in PCs at the time.

This article is just incendiary. It's pure flamebait, and you fell for it. I highly doubt that Apple "fans" are complaining about having to buy a copy of Vista because I highly doubt many of them are running Windows.
I highly doubt they are complaining about batteries. The iPod is hugely popular and has never had a replaceable battery. Same goes for the iPhone. The MacBook Air is 50% battery by volume and 80% by weight. Even if there were available, there would be few if any buyers.
Apple fans also couldn't care less about the stock price. They care about cool stuff.
People who don't like Apple (which can hardly be described as "fans") like to complain about Apple are disappointed that they have to buy Windows from a third party (what? iPhoto doesn't come with a Nokia D80? HOW COULD APPLE DO THIS TO ME?!?!).
People who don't carry spare batteries for their PC laptops complain that you can't get a spare battery for Apple devices (an extra battery costs how much??).
Day traders who were hoping to cash in on Macworld care about Apple's stock price. Journalists who want to write about how much money you can make as a day trader during the week of Macworld care about Apple's stock price (Apple stock didn't jump 30 points?? I'm ruined! SELL!!! SELL!!! SELL!!!).

I am not entirely confident that the guys Apple use for service are doing their job in my best interest.I had a 12" PowerBook where the Harddrive started failing on me. Periodically i would have the entire system freeze on me. It might be 2 minutes after I had booted - it might be 2 hours. It was consistent that i would experience it around 4 times a day.

After talking to Apple I had a UPS guy pick it up for service. I had written a detailed description on what was wrong, how the problem revealed itself and

For the last 5-6 years, Apple's been making their pro lineup of laptops out of soft metal that bends, dents, and warps on the slightest impact (at least in my experience). If there's the slightest dent or warp in that metal, there's a good chance that the Apple store will refuse to fix your laptop even if it's something completely unrelated to the casing (e.g. bad ram, fault DVD drive, etc).For what those laptops cost, Apple should have made those suckers out of lexan and added a few curves here and there t

I don't agree with observation that the metal casing of the pro notebooks are prone to deformation. True, it was like that when Apple released the titanium notebooks but the aluminum casing they now use is very sturdy. God knows I drop this aluminum PB notebook enough times to warrant a dent if your statement were true. But, they do have a policy of not repairing under warranty if there it signs of damage on the casing. That has always been that way.

Remember Apple's Rip, Mix, Burn [youtube.com] ad? The tag line at the end, "It's your music. Burn it on a Mac"? At the time, the music industry was up in arms over this idea that people could rip music from CDs to their computers. Apple became a fair-use sweetheart overnight by actively promoting the concept in advertising that it was okay for you to do this. Apple was the consumer's friend, fighting for our rights against the evil music cartels--or so the fanbois said.

Then Apple came out with the Airport Express. A great idea--stream audio from your iTunes library to your home stereo. However, Apple encrypted the data so that it could not be sniffed and somehow copied out of the air. Why? According to Apple, they had to do that so as not to offend the music industry. And to make matters worse, they didn't even add a way to send encrypted audio to it. So it only worked with iTunes.

After that, Apple started selling music videos in the iTunes Store. But there is no way to transfer the audio portion of the music video to a CD or an iPod. So if you like the song and you like the video, you need to buy them separately, even though the song is part of the video. What gives?

And, of course, most recently, Apple added ringtones to the iTunes Store which you can install on your iPhone. But you can only make ringtones from music that you purchased on the iTunes store. So you first have to pay 99 cents to buy the full song--possibly twice if you already bought it on CD--and that gives you the privilege of spending 99 cents again for a ringtone! Why? Well, because the music industry wanted it that way.

What happened to Apple, the consumer's friend, the fair-use sweetheart?

I was especially galled by the ringtone thing. Here was a perfect opportunity for Apple to stand up and say, "It's ridiculous for you to have rebuy a song to use it as a ringtone!" To, once again, show itself as the consumer's friend. Instead, they bowed under pressure from the music industry. What's even more annoying, though, is the mewling Mac mavens who immediately chime in, "Well, at least you're not paying $3.99 a year like all those other guys charge!"

And honestly, if you're looking for a $600 laptop you REALLY shouldn't be comparing with MacBook Pros, or any high-end laptop like that. Apple has never made secret that it builds only mid-high end machinery, not low-end budget computers.

I've been moving my family, friends, and gf to Macs for a while now, and they're much happier than they've ever been. Between $1100 and $600 you get a heck of a lot more performance (not always relevant to them), but the peace of mind of not being subject to malware, troj

If you need to buy a new laptop every three years, you can almost justify it when they cost $600. Still annoying but you can live with it. When the laptop starts at $2000 and has the same upgrade cycle, that's when baby jebus starts crying.

Every laptop with specs comparable to the macbook carries roughly the same price as the macbook's $1100.

That's right, they are integrated. Besides, they have better components. They use better processors, more expensive and better quality memory, that's why you get less of it, because its better, and they don't use any old disk drives, they use premium ones. And their graphics cards are better too. That's why they cost more. You get what you pay for. Oh, and their optical drives are very high class premium drives too, none of this cheap OEM crap. And I forgot those cases. Those are premium cases.Did I

I always thought Apple killing the Cube was a bad idea. I'd love to see a new Cube sized Mac that has the basic innards of a Mac Mini but that allows me to swap the hard drive and video card if I want. Oh, and give ma a wireless keyboard with the numeric keypad. What the hell were they thinking when they axed the keypad on their new wireless keyboards?

Wow, I did so many searches on this dang issue and came up with nothing! I thought I was the only person who hid their SSID for their wireless network or something! Leopard will remember what I put in there one out of ten times, on a lucky day. It'll work fine for a week and then suddenly forget my wireless network! THIS IS SO ANNOYING! I found that unhiding my SSID fixed the problem immediately.

Do none of the Apple employees use hidden wireless networks? It baffles me that this problem is still around SO L